After the Sun Sets
by Somnium.0
Summary: [SPOILERS: If you haven't read all of the Sookie Stackhouse books, and don't want spoilers, don't read this fic!] Eric turns Sookie one night, convinced she will never pick a good time to decide to let him do it herself. She eventually adapts, and realizes that there are bigger problems that she has to face...
1. Chapter 1

Note: This story takes place before the ending of Deadlocked. Sam is alive and the Culviel Dor has not been used. Enjoy!

* * *

The night before Eric Northman turned Sookie Stackhouse into a vampire without her permission, they had the most positively wonderful sex that she had ever had.

"Is it a special occasion?" She asked in a breathless giggle the third time her viking was ready _again_, into the second hour of their lovemaking, feeling the hum of satisfaction throughout her body so heavily that it was dizzying. He was on top of her, kissing every inch of her he could put his mouth on.  
"If we keep going like this, I won't be able to do a thing tomorrow," Sookie protested - though, not really - and so he slowed things down. He called her his lover and embraced her and made her feel absolutely wonderful, again and again and again, until just before the gray filter of morning daylight had begun to filter through her window and her voice had begun to break. She didn't remember exactly when she had fallen asleep, just that she had felt hazy and good and loved.

Of course he was gone from her side when she woke in the morning - well, afternoon, truthfully. She didn't have work until the night shift, so she went out to enjoy what was left of the sun. She was amazed at how much the garden had grown in such a short time, and since she was lazy about tending it, it definitely needed some work. She took the time to weed it and bring some of the fruits inside. She was pleasantly aware of the ache throughout her body as she moved around, evidence of the amazing night she had experienced with Eric.

Before the day became too chilly, she took the time to oil herself up and lay out in the lawn chaise. The sun was still out, and the sky was cloudless; She felt like it would be too much of a disappointment to ignore that kind of weather by _not_ letting herself get a little tan.  
It felt wonderful and relaxing.  
She let a radio play beside her and let herself day-dream as she soaked up the sun.  
She thought about the happy turn in communication her relationship with Eric had finally been taking lately.  
She didn't think about Freyda, she didn't think about Kym Rowe, and she didn't think about the Culviel Dor.

Her skin felt warm and sun-kissed by the time she had to get ready for work. She slapped on a little make-up as usual, threw on her uniform, and drove to Merlotte's.

That night at work was one that kept her busy, leaving her tired but with some impressive tips. She had to clean up a pitcher of beer after a little group of parish workers - Jason not among them this evening - had had a little too much and had accidentally knocked it over. When it was the kind of night where that was the only issue, she thought, it was still a good night.  
She chatted with Sam, and Tara later on when she had dropped in to say hello. Predictably, the pregnant woman had ordered a big greasy burger and eaten it in record time.

It felt like the evening had gone by in no time by the time her shift was over. It had been a fulfilling day, one that didn't seem particularly out of the ordinary - which was a great treat when you were Sookie Stackhouse.  
That is, until she got home and was attacked by her lover, while Pam and another little blonde vampire she hadn't ever even met looked on.

* * *

"Eric, what are you doing?" Sookie demanded when he had gripped her shoulders tightly after she had entered her kitchen. He could have at least mentioned he was coming over - with people she hadn't known - so that she could have prepared. And why was he holding on to her like that?  
She considered whether or not she should try to remedy the situation by playing the good host, but with this unexpected company it probably wouldn't be rude for her to just ask them to leave. She wasn't sure if she even had enough True Blood to go around.

"Sookie, know that I am doing this for your own good," Eric replied solemnly.

That is when she began to feel afraid.

"What is going on?" She asked, feeling a hundred times more serious than she had seconds ago. "What happened?"  
Had something important happened with Freyda, and now she was in trouble or something? Sookie's mind began to draw all kinds of conclusions. She couldn't for the life of her discern Pam's expression, who for once didn't look mildly amused in the face of an uncomfortable situation like this.  
The other girl - who's name she didn't know, her hair an ash blonde pixie cut - didn't wear any expression at all.  
No one answered her.

And then Eric bit her neck.

Sookie's first reaction was embarrassment. There was no way she was going to let him stand there and feed from her like she was some common blood whore, while Pam and and Pixie-Cut stood by.

"Stop it!" She shouted incredulously, trying to shove him away.

He didn't budge.  
She was spectacularly angry for a long moment, trying instead to back away; but he held her there firmly, her neck burning and her eyes welling up with hot, enraged tears.

"Eric, what the hell!" She shouted at him then, bringing her knee up as hard as she could into his stomach, and at that moment she truly wanted to hurt him.  
It was completely ineffective. He drew away from her long enough to pull her to the nearest wall, pressing her back against the flat surface so that he could push himself flush against her body; that way she couldn't find a way to hit him again. She was simply crushed against the wall and his cool body. He gazed calmly at her for the short few seconds that it took him to subdue her this way.

Adrenaline blurred every second together for her. She saw that his expression was avid... Determined and excited, like he had looked when she had walked in on him during that party, before he had had a chance to drain Kym Rowe. She screamed at him, wordlessly this time, as he sunk his fangs back into her neck for a final time. He made a muffled little sound of pleasure against the side of her neck.

Eric hadn't ever done it for so long that she had begun to feel woozy like this.  
"Pam," Sookie pleaded to her friend for help, her own voice sounding odd to her.

Anger turned to swelling panic within her chest, but in a moment it was a far-away feeling, and her fingertips had begun to tingle. Her struggling tapered off, as that tingling feeling spread from her fingertips, up her arms. It crept up her legs, too, until it crawled up into her head and filled it with a dim buzzing noise.

Suddenly she was on her knees, though she didn't remember falling, and Eric was sitting too, gently cradling her in his arms now as he continued to feed from her. He didn't have to worry about her trying to run away anymore. She could barely feel his arms around her, her skin was so fuzzy.

He drew her into his lap then, holding on to her thighs and positioning her legs on either side of him, so that she was straddling him as he sat with her. He held her as closely to himself as he could.

She forgot why she should be upset with him.  
She could feel, vaguely, that he was aroused. She felt so dizzy.

Her world went black. 

* * *

Eric bit into his wrist savagely when he felt his lover's heart slow to the perfect time. Blood dripped out sluggishly, but in quantity from the large gash - he wanted to be sure there was enough to feed her quickly, and in time. It was easy enough to imagine what would happen if this wasn't done perfectly.

He brought his wrist to Sookie's lips, her eyes looking eerily blank at him, all the color gone from her beautiful face. He cradled her head in his free arm, tipping it back so that the blood would drip in. Her lips pressed against his skin motionlessly.

He had to strain to keep his concentration - He had just finished draining his lover of her sweet human-and-fairy blood completely, and for the last time. It taxed his attention like a strong aphrodisiac; it was all he could do to remain attentive. Cradling her in his lap as he went through the process of turning her into his eternal companion was one of the most captivatingly amazing and sensual things he had ever done.  
_There will be no one to even enjoy it with, if I don't do this precisely,_ he reminded himself harshly.

Sookie stirred enough to swallow, slowly at first, her lips moving gently against his wrist as she drank in the vital fluid. It drew a sigh from him.

"She is going to hate you for this," Pam said, who had been watching the process with interest, and she did sound amused now.  
Eric nearly jumped in surprise; he had forgotten she was there, in his immersion.

"Shut up, Pam."

His other child, the slim and blonde Karin Slaughter, said nothing. She never did say much. He was thankful for that, at the moment.

Sookie drank more eagerly then. Her hand slowly raised up to grip his arm, and he groaned when she actually bit down in her eagerness to consume the essential fluid. She drank and drank, until she was full and would have no more. Eric gasped and held his arm steady throughout, holding her close until she became still again.

Sookie seemed to slide back into unconsciousness, and with that, the ritual was complete.

Eric Northman listened to his beloved's heart come to a stop.


	2. Chapter 2

Sookie woke in an unfamiliar place.  
It was pitch-black dark, yet she could see Eric beside her as clear as day, his arm draped around her endearingly. He was already awake, gazing at her expectantly.

"Sookie," he said gently.  
She instinctively thrust her hands _up_ as hard as she could, and the door to the little hidey-hole in her closet ripped easily off of its hinges. It clattered against the wall noisily, raining little bits of paint down as it took a little chunk of the wall off with it.

She was out of the cramped space and standing in the bedroom within a second.  
Eric was beside her shortly. "Everything is okay," he tried to reassure her.  
She felt afraid, as if she should be defending herself. She looked around, trying to find the source of her panic.

He watched several emotions war across her face.  
She was paler now, even more beautiful than she was before in his eyes. "What would you like to do?" he asked her gently after the silence had pressed on for a few minutes, and she seemed to realize that she wasn't in any danger. She looked at him with wild eyes.

And then she threw herself at him. At first he thought that she was going to hit him, but instead she kissed him, as passionately as ever. He found himself on his back, the cold floor hard through his t-shirt and against his skin. He kissed her back eagerly.

She didn't know what she wanted.  
She felt horny, and hungry, and strong, and confused. It seemed that she felt each emotion as intensely as the other, all at once.  
She felt more alive than she ever had, though she couldn't feel her heartbeat.

She became aware that she could feel Eric's own lust like it was second to her own emotion. It was easy to pick which feeling to act on when his mirrored hers now; She wanted to make love to him. It was like the blood-bond, two-fold - This close, she couldn't help but share the same feeling that he had.

She undid his belt and jeans without ceremony, feeling a need and connection so strong that it eclipsed any other thought.  
Eric's own hands yanked down the black shorts of her work uniform, followed quickly by the undergarments beneath, and she kicked them free impatiently before straddling him.

She took him inside of her readily, and rode him as hard and as quickly as her body would allow. Which turned out to be awhile, indeed; her body didn't ache from the night before, and her legs didn't ache from the effort of her motions. Her body seemed to move quickly and effortlessly for however long she wanted it to.

"_Yes_," Eric hissed, gripping her hips and lifting her in time with her movements, amazed to finally have the pleasure of Sookie having a duration to match his. She was so eager that she didn't keep up a rhythm, just took him inside over and over as quickly and deeply as she could manage.  
He could tell she was on the edge quickly; and with her zealousness, he was too. He watched his lover throw her head back and shout out in completion, trembling from pleasure if not from effort, her body tensing as she tightened around him.  
He found himself reaching climax just after. He gripped her hips and thrust himself into her as deeply as he could, groaning in accumulative bliss. They shared a last few deep thrusts before she slowed reluctantly. She listened as Eric let out a heavy breath of contentment.

Sookie sighed, though the breath in her lungs felt odd to her; Unnecessary, almost.  
She rolled off of him wordlessly, her lust sated as her mind began to clear for what seemed like the first time. She fixed her clothing, trying to think, when she realized something else.

She was hungry. It seemed that as soon as she had begun to let herself lounge, feeling sated by that short and intense session of lovemaking, she became suddenly aware that she was ravenous.

"Sookie," Eric said again, looking up from fixing his belt as he recognized what she wanted in her eyes - he could feel it through the bond, too. He could tell that she was hungry and confused. Though he had wanted to relax, too, he didn't skip a beat - he didn't want to fail her in getting through the new stages of being a vampire.  
He stood in a flash, and for once, Sookie could follow his every movement with her eyes. It was the strangest sensation, that her mind and brain could follow it when she knew he was moving so quickly.

He opened the door of the bedroom, and called down the stairs for Pam.  
Had she been waiting here the whole time? Sookie tried not to contemplate that.

He returned to sit by her side again. She didn't meet his eyes, and he wasn't sure what to say; The only emotion he was picking up through the bond was confusion, and a strange feeling of detached loss. He wasn't sure if she was truly aware of what had happened to her, yet.

Pam joined them shortly, with a woman who could barely be twenty-one. She was a blue-eyed, skinny brunette who sashayed into the room like she walked into fifteen bedrooms a day, eying Eric the whole time.  
A hired blood donor.

Sookie realized two things at once; that she could read this girl's mind more clearly than she ever could have read any other person's in the past . Things that she would have had to sift through patiently, and with touch contact, broadcasted crystal-clear through the girl's mind in an instant.  
The second thing was that the sight of the girl made the back of her throat burn with thirst. She could sense the blood pumping through her veins. She wondered how Eric and Pam could control themselves.

"Carefully, Sookie. You can't hurt her," Eric whispered into Sookie's ear, too softly for the mortal to hear, and Sookie shivered with the effort; Though she found herself utterly physically unable to make herself do anything against it - She hadn't wanted to hurt the girl (at least, that wasn't the priority) but she hadn't really wanted to worry about being careful, either.

"Hi," Brunette said, finally turning her gaze from Eric to Sookie. She crouched down on the floor next to her, and calmly flipped her silky hair to the side, offering her neck like a sweet, ripe fruit.

Sookie was on her in an instant. It was the strangest medley of sensations; The feeling of the foreign new length of her teeth - fangs, now - and how they felt slipping beneath the donor's skin like two precise razor-blades. Warm liquid welled up from Brunette's skin - and she groaned in pleasure at the feeling and taste of it. Sookie gripped her shoulders as much as she could without making the girl uncomfortable, and drank. It tasted metallic and sweet at the same time.

She felt a drip escape, running down the girl's shoulder, but Sookie ignored it, drinking deeply; It was an odd feeling, having to sate her thirst this way. But it felt like taking a long, cool sip of spring water after she had spent days without in the desert.

Eric watched this intently, enjoying watching each new thing Sookie did as a vampire just as much as he did the last. He could hardly believe he was finally able to watch Sookie do this; take blood from a mortal, to know the blissfulness of it.

The donor - who's name was Autumn, Sookie discovered from her thoughts - was aroused. She leaned into Sookie like they were familiar lovers. Thanks to her now-enhanced telepathy, Sookie could feel it so strongly she nearly empathized with it. It was a strange feeling, and she was even more unpleasantly surprised to find that - though she had just had sex - she wasn't exactly feeling opposed to that arousal.  
She pulled herself back unceremoniously.

"Autumn, do you get off on that every time?" Sookie asked suddenly and spitefully.

Autumn scowled back at her in shock. "Bitch," she spat, and stood, casting a nasty look around at all the vampires present, "I'm leaving. _Bye._"  
The donor-slash-hooker managed to storm out as dramatically as she had made her entrance, and Sookie winced when she heard her slam the front door behind her.

There was a heavy silence. Sookie used the palm of her hand to wipe some of the excess blood away from her lip, which she had sloppily let drip. She licked it away.

"Why did you say that?" Eric asked, though not as if he really cared. Pam hadn't spoken a word during the whole ordeal, and had simply smiled after the donor with an amused twinkle in her eye (and Autumn had glared back at Pam on her way out.) Her outfit looked as whimsy as ever, in a soft blue dress trimmed with white. Sookie thought she always looked like a young adult Alice in Wonderland, with her long corn silk-blonde hair.

Sookie looked at Eric like she was seeing him for the first time, her mind suddenly as vividly clear as the taste of the blood in her mouth.

"I'm a vampire," she said, testing the words out on her tongue.  
She remembered the night before.  
Remembered getting home, being manhandled... Eric biting her, though she'd screamed at him to stop.  
"How could you? You never even asked me."

Pam made a gentle 'tsk-tsk' sound, directed towards Eric. "_Leave_," he snarled at her, and though the command wasn't even meant for her, Sookie felt a jolt in her stomach. Pam couldn't argue her maker, so she skulked away to wait downstairs in the living room; Sookie knew exactly where she walked, because she could hear every damn footstep.

She suddenly felt her eyes prickle with tears. That they clouded her vision with a wet, crimson fog only caused her to cry more readily.

"Please, Sookie, don't..." Eric pleaded with her gently, but in a moment she was heaving with heart-felt sobs.  
"I don't understand, Eric. Why didn't you ask me? You knew I didn't want this. I screamed for you to stop," she huffed out in between jarred gulps. The feeling of not having to actually gasp for air between sobs was a very curious one.  
She felt violated.

"I think that that's not entirely true, Sookie. What did you think would happen? You are young now, and beautiful. You would stay with me while you aged and became weak?" Eric tried to reason.

"That's not the point. You betrayed what you knew I had wanted!"

He placed his hand on her back. "Sookie, you are wonderful. You are gorgeous and youthful, and now you will stay that way... You are brilliant and you have a very special gift. Think - really think - what is bad about this?"

She sniffed. "I'll miss the sun. I'm part fairy... My spark..."

Eric smiled reassuringly at her. "You still have your ability. You are paler, but your skin is still gorgeous and flawless and smells of the sun," He leaned forward to nuzzle her shoulder, inhaling the perfume of her before giving her a gentle kiss in the same spot. "You still smell unique and irresistible. Vampires don't often feed from each other, but I bet you still taste like sunlight. That is not something that will change."

She shook her head, scooted away from him.  
"There's nothing I can do to change this now. I guess you're... My maker, and I'll always have to listen to you. Feel what you feel. I'll have to get used to it..." She turned to look at him, wiping her eyes and smearing blood uselessly across her cheek. She gave him a very steady look. "I know I'll stay the way I am now. I know I'll always be strong and young, I understand that. But know that right now, I feel as if there is nothing worse that you could have done to me, Eric."

His calm, somewhat pleased look collapsed. He let out a long sigh, and took in the defeated expression she wore.  
"Sweetheart... This is normal. I promise you, you will feel better. I didn't want to be turned, either."

"Yeah, well, Appius Livius was a dick. So there's that to consider," She replied sardonically. She saw Eric's lip twitch at the off-character remark, and scowled at him.

Eric moved towards her again, and she let him hold her this time. They sat together quietly for a long moment, and Sookie let herself settle back into his embrace.  
It felt different. _Everything_ felt different - more precise, more vivid, like her life before had been a fuzzy dream in comparison.

"Oh, shit, Eric. What time is it?" She asked suddenly.

"Ten. You slept a little late. Why?"

She launched herself up, accidentally knocking Eric over in her haste. "Sorry," she said sincerely - what a weird feeling, being able to knock someone over who a day earlier had felt as unmovable as stone to her.  
Then she ran down the steps to the phone, passing Pam on the way as she rested silently on the living room couch, and she felt herself run as quickly and effortlessly as she ever could have imagined. It couldn't have taken her more than two seconds to run that, and she didn't feel like it took an ounce of effort.

She looked out of the kitchen at Pam again as she picked up the phone; She was doing that weird down-time thing that vampires did sometimes.  
_'__Can I do it now, too?'_ Sookie wondered.  
She pondered that while she punched in her boss's number.

"Hey, Sook. I wondered where you were," Sam said when he picked up, sounding mildly concerned.

"Yeah... I can't come in to work tonight, Sam. I'm sorry I didn't call earlier."

"Everything okay? Why not?"

"Well, Sam, I'm sort of... Dead."


	3. Chapter 3

[A/N: Really appreciating the reviews. Trying to take the critique on the flow of the story into stride here, hope you all like the outcome. Sorry if this chapter is a bit dry - It won't stay that way!]

* * *

Having to explain the situation to Sam, and arrange her work-schedule into night shifts had been one of the weirdest experiences of Sookie's life (or non-life, depending on how you looked at it.)  
Of course, he'd been upset. But there was absolutely nothing that she could do about it, now, and she expressed as much.

Sam had cussed and insisted he come over, and even threatened the final death for Eric. That statement had almost made her angry, though she couldn't understand why - Maybe it was just normal for vampires to feel protective of their makers that way, whether they wanted to or not. (Sookie definitely didn't want him dead, but she didn't want to be angry at Sam just for being a protective, sensible friend.)

She'd told him not to come over, mostly because she was afraid of how she'd react, and that Eric was still there - That wouldn't have ended well. She didn't have to say it out loud for him to seem to understand - He didn't sound offended, anyway.

But all of that had happened yesterday, and she'd insisted she was just fine to come into work tonight. Sookie felt like she was handling it pretty well. She had only cried the once. Having to wash the remnants of the bloody tears from her face had been a pretty weird experience.

After she'd gotten off the phone, Eric had asked her what the point of working at Merlotte's any more was. He'd stopped, though, when she explained impatiently that nothing would help her feel better more than being able to do something as reliable and stable as simply going back to work when she could.

He hadn't left her since then, though he'd told Pam to go home.

"You are sure that you want to do this tonight?" Eric asked her gently, for the second time.

"Yes," She said shortly. She sat at her kitchen table, with a glass of water that she hadn't touched. Eric sat across from her.  
It had been an idle habit, getting the water, though she realized after she sat down that she didn't want it and that it was a stupid thing for her to have gotten it to begin with.

"Sookie..." He said helplessly.  
It was odd, hearing him sound this way. She couldn't remember the last time he hadn't just sounded irritated when he didn't know what to do. He always liked to handle issues quickly and practically, and that meant there wasn't time to dwell on useless things when they couldn't be helped. She mostly liked that about him.

She watched condensation form on the side of the glass. Out of sheer curiosity, she picked it up and took a sip. Eric didn't say anything - He knew she was already aware that vampires didn't consume anything except for blood, and that she wasn't going to like it.  
It didn't taste _bad_, exactly, because water was pretty tasteless. However, she had the distinct impression that if it were something else - juice, or food - that she'd be gagging from the bad taste of it. She didn't really feel like testing the theory, either.

Silence settled between them for a moment. She set the glass back down.  
She wondered if she should heat some True Blood, and what it would taste like. Probably not very good.

"You might like different blood types," Eric said, for lack of anything else to say, once again being able to pick up on the fact that she was thirsty.

"What's yours?"

"O negative."

She never even paid attention to which ones she kept in the house for visitors. She never paid attention - so it probably ended up being a random variety every time.  
She stood, to open the fridge and check.

It struck her that she would have to throw away all of the food that she kept in there.  
She sighed, and took out two bottles of blood. She went through the motions of heating them up and giving them a good shake to avoid cold spots, before setting one in front of Eric and fixing hers with an unimpressed gaze.  
'O-' the glass bottle said the 'flavor' was. Well, that was lucky.

She popped the top on hers and took a sip.  
It was sub par, to say the least. Like the difference between having a big, juicy burger or a salad when those were the only two things you could ever eat.

She sipped her drink, scooted a trash bin over to the fridge, and began the process of emptying out her fridge of everything but the True Blood.

She tried to think of excuses as to why she should keep some of it. Surely that pecan pie could feed some guests? But it would just go bad if she kept it there. Same for the bottles of dressing and condiments. All of it.

"You know I wouldn't ever do anything to purposely hurt you, Sookie," She heard Eric say after a moment.  
She didn't respond. She knew that that was true. Of course, biting her had hurt, but he didn't mean that and she knew it.

"If I hadn't turned you, Freyda would have had you killed. I had been trying to negotiate with her, and I was failing every time. Did you consider that?"

She had to pause to acknowledge him then. She hadn't really thought about it - Of course, she hadn't thought that Freyda would be too keen on keeping her around. But she felt a little jolt at being unaware that negotiations on whether or not she would be able to keep her life had been going on without her knowledge.  
He got up to join her, opening one of the drawers in her fridge to toss out the fresh deli slices in it.

"I guess I just hoped it wouldn't come to that," Sookie said truthfully. "I never really wanted to get caught up into all this vamp bullshit. I just wanted to love you, Eric." It sounded cheesy, she knew, but it was truthful.

He threw away the contents of a bowl containing left over potatoes. "Do you still?"  
She met his eyes.  
"Yes, Eric. I still love you. I'm just... Ambivalent, right now."

"I understand. You don't have to worry for your life any more. You won't have to worry about being a frail human caught up in the our politics - You will be able to handle your own, now. You could never have just walked away with the way things were before."

She couldn't see where anything he was saying was false, though she didn't really like it much. She imagined trying to leave everything when she was still human.

If Freyda hadn't had her killed, someone else would have. Even humans had been trying to kill her, people she'd thought were her friends once - she'd been surviving on luck for awhile. There wouldn't have been a reasonable way out of it; As it had been, her fate was simply becoming more imminent.  
Come to think of it, she'd seen it happening to Barry, too, on the rare occasions she heard anything about him. Only the negotiations of vampires were there to protect their telepathic asses from other vampires and/or supes who wanted to kill them, pretty much at any given time. She hadn't really looked at it that way before, but it was definitely true. It was a miracle she hadn't been murdered yet.

Until now, she guessed. She tried not to feel like that was too dramatic of a revelation, but she felt a small weight lift from her chest with that realization.  
She tried to put it into perspective. Between truly dead or vampire, the choice seemed obvious enough. It hadn't been that black and white, but she couldn't have been prepared for the night Freyda would have come to kill her without Eric having known.

She wouldn't have to place her trust entirely with other, more powerful people in order to help keep her enemies away.

Eric smiled at her when he could sense her mood lift. She glanced at the clock behind him.  
"I've got to get ready for work. Don't you have to be at Fangtasia?" She asked as she closed the fridge door.

"Pam and Karin are taking care of things. It would be very remiss of me not to take care of the new vampire I had sired... Even if it wasn't you, lover," She couldn't help but smile when she saw the sincerity in his bright blue eyes when he murmured that endearment. She wondered who Karin was, because the way he mentioned it didn't make her sound like someone who was just a co-worker, but that question would have to wait.

She drained the last of the bottle of True Blood. "I didn't know how terrible this stuff really tasted," she said sympathetically.  
"I'll have a bottle of something better when you get back, later," He promised.

She left the room to change into her work clothes. She tried putting on make-up, but ended up giving up and washing it off when none of it seemed to match her new complexion correctly. She tried not to be too disappointed by that, and tried to cheer herself up with the thought of trying on an array of new make-up later on.

She walked out to her car when she was ready. She looked around her in the darkness, seeing everything in it like it was brand-new; Like switching from a no-good old box TV to the newest HD quality screen. She heard things further away in the woods than she could have if she were still human.

She gazed at her car for a bit, and then decided to run to work.

* * *

Sam met her outside, as if he had been waiting there to talk to her before she even went in to start her shift. He looked absolutely beyond startled when she ran up to him with inhuman speed, though she hadn't really thought about it. It just felt natural to be that quick.

"Sook," he said in a tone she couldn't discern. "Hey, Sam," she replied tentatively, sheepishly reaching up to fix her hair. They stood in silence for what seemed like forever, and he looked her over.

"You look... Great," He said finally, with a little smile. His thoughts were insanely clear, too - She picked up on just how good he thought she looked even before he had even said it, and though he was upset overall it wasn't an insincere comment. "You sure you want to work, tonight?"

"Definitely. I want to keep things as normal as I can," she said resolutely.

She could tell that there was a lot more that he wanted to say. He wanted to ask if she was okay, if there was anything he could do, to tell her for the hundredth time that she could talk to him whenever she needed it. It passed unspoken between them, and he opened the door for her with a smile. She walked into the bar.

And so Sookie started her very first shift as a vampire.

* * *

That night hadn't been nearly as easy as her last shift.

There was a big difference between the public accepting vampires socially, and having to deal with someone you personally know suddenly being a vampire. Like your friendly local waitress, for example, or your co-worker.

Sookie didn't make good tips that night, and none of her co-workers wanted to talk with her. Even Kennedy, who always seemed to give Sookie her sunniest smile and sometimes a big hug, kept her eyes averted and avoided conversation while she worked.

Sookie picked up from her head that it wasn't just because her friend was a vampire, now. It was mostly because she was confused, and afraid. That hurt.

People seemed unnerved at her eerily fluid and graceful movements - how quickly she moved when someone was about to spill a glass, catching it before it had barely begun to fall.  
Trying to make herself seem more clumsy and human so that people weren't so put off was an oddly mentally-consuming task.

The night wore on as if it would never end. When it was finally time to leave, she finished her closing duties as quickly as she could, and left without talking to anyone.

* * *

When she arrived back at her house - and she had to admit, running back had felt as awesome and energizing as running to work in the first place had been - she could tell that Eric was still inside of her house.

"Your uncle stopped by tonight," He said after she had entered and closed the door behind her.

_Oh, shit! Dermot, of course! How could I forget about something like that?_ She thought to herself exasperatedly.  
_Jesus, that is going to be an awkward phone conversation_. She was only glad that she wasn't there when he'd stopped by earlier.

She groaned aloud at the extra layer of things to have to worry about.

"Did you tell him what happened to me?"

"No. I thought you might not like me to do that. Besides, he could tell I was here and didn't want to test my restraint in lingering."

She wondered how that would feel. Whenever she'd seen Bill around her fairy relatives, or Eric and Pam around Claudine when she had still been alive... They must be something that smelled literally irresistible. She couldn't imagine what that would be like.

She could feel her mood falling down a notch again at the thought of having to tell Dermot and Claude that they would have to pack their stuff up and move out again. Claude was still in fairy, so she'd have to do it twice. Even though she hadn't felt what it was like for a vampire to be around a fairy yet, she knew that it was inevitable that she would have to ask them to leave. She sighed.

"Stay in Shreveport with me tonight, Sookie," Eric said when he saw her downcast expression. "We will do something fun."

_I should call Dermot,_ she thought to herself. _And I am going to get one hell of an earful from Jason if he hears about what has happened second-hand._  
She considered that carefully.  
Well, she supposed it wouldn't hurt to make those calls while she was in Shreveport, doing something better than moping around at her house.


End file.
